Tomb Raider: A Dance for the Kings
by xoxmarshaxox
Summary: Set after AOD. Lara wanders around Croft Manor, unable to find peace with herself after the events in Paris. However, an opportunity arises for Lara to travel to the other side of globe in search of undiscovered treasures. During her adventure she finds herself dealing with an acquaintance. The question that remains in her mind is in which category does he belong in; friend or foe?


**St. Petersburg, 1916**

_"Nicholas," an old woman in an old-fashioned maid outfit spoke with urgency. The corner of her head was bleeding slightly, the blood exiting from a small bruised wound. "They've broken the fort. Lenin... he's... he's unstoppable," she said, her voice almost shaking. Nicholas, the tsar of the Russian Empire, turned around to face his loyal servant. Loyalty. Friends. Right at that very moment, he had nothing._

_"Where is Anastasia?" he asked her._

_"I've prepared her, she's outside the door," the woman replied._

_"Bring her in," he ordered. The maid turned around and opened the door. She motioned a small six year old girl towards her, asking her to step inside. The girl was short and young but breathtakingly beautiful. She had gorgeous healthy long red hair and beautiful blue eyes._

_"Papa?" she called out. She ran towards her father, her arms outstretched. Nicholas bend down to lift his daughter into his arms. He buried his face into her luscious hair, taking a small whiff - an innocent goodbye on his behalf. He put her down onto the ground and looked into her eyes, cupping her chin with his hand._

_"Listen Anastasia, Marie is going to take you somewhere special. She's going to take you onto an adventure to Paris," he told her with a pained smile._

_"An adventure?" she asked in her high pitch tone. At that very moment there was a sound of banging, screams and gunshots, merely two halls down the office._

_"We must hurry," the maid, Marie, said urgently. Anastasia had utter fear in her eyes._

_"Papa?" she whimpered to her father._

_"Take this," he gave her a folded piece of paper. "This was your mothers," he said as he slipped on a necklace and clipped it on behind her neck. A small simple medallion was hanging loosely from her neck. Anastasia didn't even have time to look at it. Her father picked her up and handed her to the maid._

_"Papa! Are you coming too?" she asked. Her dad smiled at her. He bend down and kissed her forehead._

_"I'll always be with you, Anastasia."_

_And with that, the maid gripped onto Anastasia tighter as she left the office room through a secret door. Anastasia didn't cry. She didn't know what was going on. What did he mean by that? What was this necklace for? And just what was in the paper she was holding?_

_Nicholas spun around to face a group of men, marching inside his office. They began rummaging through his cupboards, papers and books. A man, whom Nicholas recognised as Lenin, walked towards him. _

_"Where's your daughter?" he asked with a smug smile. Nicholas looked down at the relatively short man, but he did not say anything. His lips were pursed and he did not flinch. Lenin made a small hand motion to one of the soldiers. The soldier left and then returned with a woman in his hold, holding a gun to her head. The woman was his very own wife, the Empress of the Russian Empire._

_"Where's your daughter?" Lenin repeated the question._

_"You're still going to kill us all," Nicholas shrugged. Lenin yelled out in anger, sending a punch straight into Nicholas's jaw._

_"Search everywhere for the map! And find that bloody girl!" he ordered to his men._

**England, Modern Day**

"This is not going to end well," Alister muttered, folding his arms across his chest as he leaned his bum against the table. Zip was sitting at the table, downloading more video games from the internet but his attention was focused on the sexy British woman in front of him. She was attempting to change the light bulb. However, their ladder was nowhere to be found and instead she decided to get the chairs, stack them up, one on top of the other. It still wasn't enough height wise. She added a stack of Japanese Literature books as well. There she was, performing some sort of circus trick right before their eyes. The stools were unstable, slightly shaking under Lara's feet.

"Almost there," she groaned, reaching on her tippy toes to give the light bulb the last twist. With the last bit of energy, she managed the move the light bulb and make it produce the light it originally was supposed to emit.

"There we go," she sighed with relief. She looked down at the two boys, a wide proud smile on her face. Suddenly there was a knock on the door. Lara was taken by surprise. Her legs began to shake unstably as her "tower" began to wobble from side to side.

"Lara!" Alister gasped in fear. Zip stood up in his chair, prepared to do some crazy ninja stunt to save her life. However, Lara was a woman of many talents. Though she never performed in a circus, she was good with athletics, acrobatics and gymnastics. As the lower chair began to topple over, Lara heaved her body off the surface of the Japanese Literature Books. In mid-air, she folded her body, tucking in her knees to her stomach. She landed smoothly on her feet after two body rolls in the air. She turned around and faced her audience, giving them a playful bow.

"Oh my heart," Zip gasped, collapsing back into his seat. Alister rolled his eyes, walking towards the chairs and stack of fallen books. While he was beginning to clean the mess, Lara approached the door. She opened it wide, prepared to see Winston there. No surprise, he was standing right outside the door. He had his usual tray under his arm and a small towel hanging loosely from his other arm.

"Winston, what a pleasant surprise," Lara smiled at him sarcastically.

"Flattery will get you no where," he replied back with humour in his voice. Lara cackled a little, honestly surprised by his witty remark.

"Oh Winston, I think you're rubbing off of me," she replied in her strong English accent.

"Excuse me for the interruption," he said, peeking over her shoulder, looking at the mess, "but someone by the name of 'Mr. Cuff' is downstairs waiting for you," he explained to her.

"Ah, he has arrived," Lara exclaimed. "Alister, Zip, you wouldn't mind cleaning up that there, would you darlings?" she asked them in a playful manner. She spun around, letting Winston lead the way to the guest room. Lara traveled down the set of stairs, seeing a gentlemen sitting by the fireplace. He was already making himself at home, leaning completely back in his arm-chair.

"Mr. Cuff," Lara announced his name as she reached the bottom of the stairs. The man rose up from his seat and turned to face the woman before him. Mr. Cuff was no more than thirty years old. He had light, long blonde hair that was combed back behind his ears. He was rather handsome in general, but not to Lara's tastes.

"Lara Croft! I'm delighted to see you!" he said, offering his hand to shake. Lara shook his hand, wearing a pleasant smile on her face.

"I loved your latest book, the studies on the comparisons between Slovenian and Egyptian mythology. It proved to be... most impress," Lara chose her words carefully. Mr. Cuff smiled brightly, delighted to receive such compliment from Lara. "However, I believe you're here for another reason. Correct?" Lara asked.

"Yes!" Mr. Cuff said as if he was interrupted from his inner fantasies. "I want to show you something," he motioned towards the coffee table where his laptop was. "I'm currently working in St. Petersburg, working in Nicholas's archives," he began explaining as he started typing something onto the computer. He showed a slide show of various pictures of a huge library, clearly 1920's style.

"Oh my," Lara gasped, leaning closer. The books were all different. There were Mayan, Greek, Latin, ancient Greek... the languages as such never seemed to stop.

"Nicholas was a great collector," Mr. Cuff continued to explain, "he collected files, information and facts about the ancient world. He had great taste, in my personal opinion," he added with a little chuckle. He cleared his throat when Lara didn't react to his small joke. "Anyway, the reason I am showing you all of this is because of one of the books was a map," he said. He exited the slide show and found a certain single picture he wanted to show Lara. It was a large book, it almost had A3 size pages. The edges were slightly worn and one of the corners even a little burnt off.

"What book is this?" Lara asked in confusion, unable to decipher the language.

"Ancient Russian. It was very difficult to translate," Mr. Cuff said, "but after long days, we managed to translate all eight pages."

"Eight pages?" Lara frowned.

"Yes, the book may seem large but each page is almost two card boards thick."

"What do these eight pages say?" she asked.

"Well the first six talk about some of the classical legends that we've already known about. However, the last two are fascinating. It speaks of physical, real evidence of these legends. Nicholas wrote this book himself it seems as his name is signed off in the end."

"Why would the Emperor of Russia so such a thing?" Lara looked up at Mr. Cuff.

"Because the last page..." he quickly clicked on the laptop so the next image was shown, "is a map."

The picture that was supposedly to be a map was most defiantly, odd. It had three circle on it, one embounded by the other, each one getting smaller as they got closer to the center. There were a few waves or scribbles in the corner of the pages but not many. And finally, there were a list of four digit numbers running down the right hand side of the page. This was a peculiar map.

"I know what you must be thinking," Mr. Cuff began, "how in the world is this a map? Nicholas was an intelligent man. Not a good tsar but he was a genius. He used three different ... codings... to create this map. The numbers are co-ordinates, the scribbles are symbols and the circles are reference points," he explained.

"I still don't see as why you're here," Lara moaned, rubbing the side of her forehead, suppressing a headache.

"Lara. I need help retrieving these... evidences," he explained. "If Nicholas's map is correct... the mountain cave is very unstable and very dangerous."

"First of all," Lara sat down on the seat Mr. Cuff once was sitting on, "what sort of _evidence_ are we talking about?"

"Mostly Armour of great Russian fighters, treasures and such," he shrugged. Lara's eyes narrowed. She knew he was keeping something from her.

"I don't do this anymore," Lara shrugged, leaning back in her seat. "I don't raid tombs anymore," she finished.

"Lara," Mr. Cuff shut his laptop closed. "Do you realise what you're turning down? The archive we found, yes, is most impress, but these treasures... if they are to be recovered... Let's just say, I could buy all of Croft's lands five times over," he explained.

"It's never been about the money, Mr. Cuff," Lara said. "I just think I need a break from all that sort of action."

"I understand what happened in Paris must have been traumatic," Mr. Cuff continued to push the issue, "but I promise you, there is no race. No one knows about this expedition other than my team and myself," he assured her.

"Expedition?" Lara raised on of her eyebrows.

"Yes," Mr. Cuff grinned, "I've already set out a whole team to help you," he explained.

"I work alone," Lara warned him. Mr. Cuff's shoulders sunk. He felt like there was no way of winning. Like a child that never experienced Christmas, the sparkle in eyes disappeared. Lara felt like punching herself. Before her stood an ambitious young Archaeologist, hoping to make a living out of discovering artifacts rather than writing books.

"Fine," Lara sighed. "I'll do it."

"Really?" and that sparkle returned to his eyes.

"On one condition. No. Team," she warned him, her eyes darting directly into his.

"But for safety and regulation conditions from the insurance company, I can't let you go alone," he told her.

"I'll be taking one of my own men," she told him.

"Brilliant! When will I see you in Seoul?"

"Seoul?" Lara was taken by surprise.

"Yes! The map directs to a large city in South Korea called Busan," he said. Lara's headache just got worse.

"I suppose I can leave as soon as you're ready," she groaned.

"Great!" Mr. Cuff almost fist-pumped the air.

"You owe me a great deal, Mr. Cuff."

"Please, call me Tyler."

* * *

**tada~ first chapter! I hope it wasn't too boring :( I know there wasn't much action but I have to get the ball rolling somehow, right? Please subscribe and review~**


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